Hungarosaurus

Taxobox
name = "Hungarosaurus"
status = Fossil
regnum = Animalia
phylum = Chordata
classis = Sauropsida
ordo = Ornithischia
subordo = Ankylosauria
familia = Nodosauridae
genus = "Hungarosaurus"
species = "H. tormai"
binomial = "Hungarosaurus tormai"
binomial_authority = Ösi, 2005

Overview

"Hungarosaurus tormai" ("hungar" = named for Hungary, Greek "sauros" = lizard, species named for András Torma; Ösi, 2005) is a nodosaurid ankylosaur from the Upper Cretaceous (Santonian) Csehbánya Formation of the Bakony Mountains of western Hungary. It is presently the most completely known ankylosaur from the Cretaceous of Europe. Cladistic analysis on the taxon indicates that it is a basal member of the Nodosauridae, more derived than "Struthiosaurus" (another European nodosaurid), yet still more primitive than North American forms such as "Silvisaurus", "Sauropelta", and "Pawpawsaurus". The length of "Hungarosaurus" is estimated to have been about 4 meters. The skull of this dinosaur is estimated to have been 32-36 cm. in length. Like all nodosaurids, "Hungarosaurus" was herbivorous. Ankylosaur material has been known from Europe since the 19th Century, with finds having been previously made in England, Austria, western Romania, France, and northern Spain.

Holotype

Four specimens of "Hungarosaurus tormai" are known, all collected from an open-pit bauxite mine near the village of Iharkút, Veszprém County, in the Balkony Mountains (Transdanubian Range) of western Hungary. The quarry exposes the Csehbánya Formation (which overlies the Halimba Formation, also Cretaceous in age), which is a floodplain and channel deposit consisting largely of sandy clays and sandstone beds. The specimen designated as the holotype is MTM Gyn/404 (in the collections of the Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum, Budapest, Hungary) and consists of 450 bones, including portions of the skull (premaxilla, left prefrontal, left lacrimal, right postorbital, jugal and quadratojugal, left frontal, pterygoid, vomer, the right quadrate and a fragment of the left quadrate, basioccipital, one hyoid), an incomplete right mandible, three cervical vertebrae, six dorsal vertebrae, ten caudal vertebrae, ossified tendon fragments, three cerival and thirteen dorsal ribs, five chevrons, the left scapulocoracoid, right scapula, portions of the right manus, a partial pelvis, and more than one hundred osteoderms.

Associated Fossil Vertebrates

The exposure of the Csehbánya Formation that produced "Hungarosaurus tormai" has also yielded remains of bony fishes, turtles, lizards, crocodiles, and pterosaurs, along with teeth from a diminutive dromaeosaurid-like theropod and a "Rhabodon"-like ornithopod.

References

Ösi, Attila. 2005. "Hungarosaurus tormai", a new ankylosaur (Dinosauria) from the Upper Cretaceous of Hungary. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 25(2):370-383, June 2005. [http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Bridge/4602/newankylosaur.pdf]

External links

* "Hungarosaurus" (with pictures) [http://index.hu/tech/tudomany/hungarodino/]
* Dinosaurier-Web (in German) [http://www.dinosaurier-web.de/galery/pages_h/hungarosaurus.html]